After telling three parables explaining his authority to the Temple Priests and Elders, Jesus was confronted by another group of Jerusalem leaders. It is the Tuesday before Good Friday. One day earlier, Jesus cleared out the Temple of the money changers and animal sellers. Two days earlier, Jesus rode into Jerusalem to a king’s welcome. “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’”[i]
Jesus navigated the questioning from the Temple Priests and Elders, and now he is facing off with the Pharisees and Herodians.
The Pharisees were the party that despised the current administration. They resisted everything the Roman administration forced upon Israel. The Pharisees were Bible-believing observers of God's commandments. They believed a coin with Caesar's image and son of God printed on it was just one example of how the administration forced people of faith to compromise their convictions. The Pharisees wanted a grassroots, righteous revolution. They just didn't want it being brought by a third party like Jesus, who had made a habit of driving their poll numbers down.
The Herodians were the party that supported the Roman administration in Jerusalem. They thought the administration was making Israel great again. After all, Rome (in addition to sword-carrying legionnaires) brought roads, clean water, and sanitation. Even if it took a sword, Roman stability was a welcomed relief in the tinderbox called Israel.
Working together, the Pharisees and Herodians are equivalent to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Matt Gatez working with one another to elect a Speaker of the House. That is how seriously the authorities of Jerusalem took the threat Jesus presented.
“Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”[ii]
If Jesus said, “No, do not pay the Emperor’s head tax,” then the state would have had grounds for getting rid of him. If Jesus says, “Yes, pay the tax because the tax is correct,” then he would be guilty of idolatry because the coins used to pay the tax were stamped with an image of Caesar Tiberius on one side and the other read, “Caesar Tiberius, son of God.”
Jesus asks, “Does anyone have a quarter?”
The Pharisees and Herodians reached into their pockets, digging for loose change.
When presented with a coin, Jesus asks, “Whose picture is on it?
Someone answers, “Caesar.”
Jesus replies, “Well, if he admires that stuff so much, give it back to him. Be careful, and do not give Caesar what belongs to God.”
If you have not noticed it yet, I will let you in on a not-so-secret secret to the questions Jesus is asked during Holy Week. The questions asked of Jesus are not at the heart of the confrontation. There is always something more going on. Below the surface is an agenda, and in the question of taxes, it is a question about the death of Jesus’s movement or a question about Jesus’s death.
To come up with a solid theological or doctrinal statement regarding taxation from this passage would be a stretch. Yes, pay the empire what is necessary for the common good of the people. “We cannot complain,” writes theologian Frederick Bruner, “when we avail ourselves of the benefits of the state.” Bruner continues to say Christians should give Caesar what is due and give Caesar a boundary. Do not give to Caesar what belongs to God.
At times, as Christians in the United States, it can feel as though we march to a different beat from the state, but at the same time, we are told we should be walking in lockstep with the state. “Do not give to Washington what belongs to God,” says Jesus, but Jesus never says what belongs to God.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters,”[iii] when talking about money and God, but it would not be a stretch to say, “No one can serve two masters… you cannot serve God and the state.” That is how it feels sometimes, and to make matters worse, there are moments when we cannot tell what belongs to one or the other.
Every Sunday, we pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,” and with that prayer, we are petitioning God to unleash the Kingdom of Heaven across creation. We pray that what the state has relegated to a private and personal faith reorders the world. The Lord’s prayer is the most dangerous threat facing the Caesars of the world. Will Willimon says, “It is Jesus who puts all of our loyalties and loves on the table, makes us look at them, and then makes us pray the words ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.’”
I have been struggling, like many of you, to find words to respond to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas (I barely have the words for the war raging in Ukraine). Three Saturdays ago, we watched in horror as Israel was attacked, and for three weeks, we held our breath, cried, and turned our eyes away from the horrors of war – human losses we cannot imagine, the innocent caught in the crossfire, children killed. Unspeakable tragedy.
We do not handle tragedy well. We want to turn tragedy into an assignment and ask, “What should we do now?” And for the empire, the doing usually involves blowing something or someone up.
Jesus puts us in a different position when he says, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
Now, I am not going to make a declaration about public policy or international diplomacy. To do so would be outside of my area of expertise. I do, though, know how the story ends. I know that the wages of sin and death of the empire did not hold the last word three days after Good Friday. God’s justice and mercy overcome the wickedness of the world.
“Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”
Give the wages of war back to Caesar.
And what should we give to God give?
When Jesus was speaking, he used the word eikon. The same word appears at the beginning of Genesis when the Bible says that you, me, Jews, and Palestinians are stamped with the eikon of God. The images of the Caesars of the world – spanning geography and time – have been marked by the ability of empires to destroy one another. Empires rise and fall through the killing of or responding to the killing of the innocent. The only time Caesar appears in the gospels is at the beginning of the story to note the location of Christ’s birth, when the innocent were killed in an attempt to stop the inbreaking of God, and at the end when the state wants the trap Jesus. We are uncomfortable when we face what the empire demands of us, and still, every Sunday, every morning, or every night, we pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”
We live in a nation where we are “free” to worship as we wish so long as that worship promises to stay within the safe confines of our homes and sanctuaries. But when we pray the prayer Jesus taught us, we are praying that God will tear apart the barriers Caesar requires. We are praying that when Caesar tells us to take up arms against the eikons of God, like Pharoah, God will soften our hearts, reminding us that swords have been hammered into gardening tools in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Notice the gospel’s good news in the passage. Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Jesus knows our hypocrisy. The Pharisees and Herodians reached into their pockets, but Jesus did not. The idolatrous coin that condemns was not in Jesus’s pocket. Christ’s pocket was empty because he is fully faithful to the prayer he taught us, the prayer we will pray in just a few minutes.
In taking our sin into His hand, you have been gifted his righteousness, no matter what you render to Caesar or how many times you have prayed, “Thy kingdom come,” only to forget that the kingdom that is here and is to come will topple all of the Caesars that demands their coins.
[i] Matthew 21:8-11
[ii] Matthew 22:17
[iii] Matthew 6:24
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